IKEA-sponsored masjid causes outrage among Islamophobes

Bare Naked Islam IKEA

The Islamophobic blogosphere continues to set new standards in craziness. This poses some problems for those of us dedicated to combating it. The traditional reference to Melanie Phillips as “Mad Mel” now seems outdated since, compared with Pamela Geller, Phillips appears almost balanced and rational. And Geller, in turn, is outbid in the competition for sheer lunacy by Bonni Benstock-Intall of Bare Naked Islam. As quick scroll through her blog will confirm, “Bonkers Bonni” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

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Bangladesh government rebuffs pleas to admit Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar violence

Rohingya refugees

Bangladesh has rebuffed pleas from the United Nations and other groups to allow in Rohingya Muslims displaced by sectarian clashes in Myanmar, continuing to turn away their boats at its borders.

Border guards “foiled two separate attempts of Rohingyas to enter” Bangladesh on Wednesday, the national news agency reported, sending 70 people back to Myanmar. About 1,500 Rohingya fleeing Myanmar in boats have been turned back since the weekend, when clashes broke out with the majority Rakhine Buddhist population, the Associated Press reported.

“It is not in our interest that new refugees come from Myanmar,” Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni told reporters in Dhaka on Tuesday. She reiterated that position Wednesday, the national news agency said.

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Worldwide counter-jihad alliance to launch with Stockholm demonstration on August 4

SION logoThis is the typically bombastic headline to a press release from Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer’s Stop Islamization of Nations (SION) announcing a forthcoming protest in Sweden.

The Stockholm demonstration was originally an initiative by British Freedom, the political ally of the English Defence League. At a recent BF/EDL strategy meeting it was reported that “party leaders are planning to go to Stockholm to deliver a public apology on behalf of Luton for the fact that the Stockholm bomber was radicalised in the town”.

Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, who died in a failed suicide attack in the Swedish capital in December 2010, did indeed live in Luton for a number of years, but there is no evidence that the town or its Muslim community had any influence on his turn to violent extremism. In 2007, when Abdaly tried to use the Luton Islamic Centre as a platform to win support for his (at that stage still non-violent) extremist views, he was challenged by the centre’s leadership and forced to leave.

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Torygraph exposes Baroness Warsi’s (non-existent) ‘new links to radicals’

The Sunday Telegraph continues to pursue the Tory right’s campaign against Sayeeda Warsi, who was recently referred to Sir Alex Allan, the independent adviser on the Ministerial Code, after she accepted that she had committed the (very minor) offence of forgetting to declare a business relationship with her husband’s cousin Abid Hussain when he accompanied her on a visit to Pakistan.

According to the Telegraph‘s investigations editor Jason Lewis, “there were calls last week for the inquiry, ordered by David Cameron, the Prime Minister, to be widened after Mr Hussain admitted that he had been involved in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamist party that the Conservatives had pledged to ban”. Who the people making these calls might be, Lewis doesn’t tell us. Perhaps this is because the “calls” were more in the nature of malicious whispers, which is how some Tory rightwingers have been attempting to undermine Warsi ever since she was appointed party co-chairman.

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Evening Standard warns of ‘terror’ threat to Olympics … from Leyton mosque

The Evening Standard has latched on to the allegations against Masjid-al-Tawhid in Leyton, carrying a report in today’s issue titled “Mosque near Olympics site in ‘terror link’ investigation”. The aim of this scaremongering headline, which is based on a quote provided by the mosque’s former imam Usama Hasan, is obviously to suggest that the forthcoming Olympic Games face a threat from Masjid-al-Tawhid.

Interestingly, the nature of this supposed “terror link” has changed. According to the Standard, the Charity Commission’s investigation, launched in response to a complaint by Usama Hasan, is now “understood to centre on sermons delivered at the mosque between 2004 and 2010 by Haitham al-Haddad, a preacher by whom notorious ‘underpants bomber’ Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab claims he was influenced”. Indeed, to underline this point the report is illustrated with a photo of Abdulmutallab.

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‘Mosque’s terror links’ investigated by Charity Commission

Masjid-al-TawhidAn east London mosque is being investigated by the Charity Commission over potential links to terrorist and extremist groups.

In a letter seen by BBC London, the commission says it is beginning a statutory inquiry into the Masjid-al-Tawhid mosque in Leyton. It comes as liberal Imam Dr Usama Hasan resigned from the mosque following death threats for teaching about evolution and women’s rights.

In the letter, the Charity Commission states the investigation will look at whether the Masjid-al-Tawhid Trust “allowed individuals with potential links to terrorist organisations to use the charity to promote and/or express extremist views; and/or the trustees have taken appropriate steps to safeguard the reputation of the charity.”

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EDL joins neo-Nazis in attack on anti-Jubilee party

EDL backs attacks on anti-Jubilee protestors

The EDL have delightedly posted a link to a Sky news report of their members attacking a “Stuff the Jubilee party” in Newcastle earlier today. This despite a clear statement in the report that “Nazi salutes and chants” were directed against the anti-Jubilee protestors by the EDL.

There is also video footage of an EDL supporter throwing a firecracker, which apparently hit one of the anti-Jubilee crowd, burning his hair, much to the pleasure of his attackers, who admitted in gloating Facebook comments to throwing bottles as well.

The EDL’s football hooligan division, Casuals United, has posted a short report too, making no attempt to hide the fact that the EDL organised the demonstration in co-operation with the Infidels breakaway group, with whom the EDL had supposedly severed links due to the Infidels’ neo-Nazi sympathies.

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Pat Condell acquires another admirer

Pat Condell Bare Naked Islam

Pat Condell, the National Secular Society’s favourite comedian (he has been repeatedly nominated for their Secularist of the Year award, although he has yet to win it) has long had a fan base among the Islamophobic right in the United States. He has recently acquired a new admirer. It’s none other than Bonni Benstock-Intall of the hate site Bare Naked Islam, which achieved notoriety last year for its promotion of violence against Muslims and attacks on mosques. Over the past year or so Bare Naked Islam has repeatedly posted Condell’s videos and hailed him as a fellow anti-Muslim bigot.

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MPs want curbs on ‘unacceptable’ religious slaughter

The government is facing renewed calls to curb the slaughtering of animals that have not first been rendered unconscious – a debate that pits religious sensitivities against the convictions of animal welfare campaigners.

Senior Conservative backbencher Greg Knight has told MPs that the practice of slaughtering cattle, lambs and chickens in this way is “rife”.

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EDL and BFP leaders hold ‘strategy meeting’

EDL BFP press conferenceBritish Freedom (as the British Freedom Party has been renamed, because BFP is “too closely sounding to BNP”) reports that its executive council has held a meeting with the English Defence League leaders to discuss future political plans.

BF chairman Paul Weston will be attending an “SIOE (Stop the Islamisation of America)” event in New York on 11 September along with newly appointed vice-chairmen Stephen Lennon and Kevin Carroll. Presumably this is the SION conference to “fight blasphemy laws under the Sharia Islamic supremacist war on free speech” announced by Pamela Geller a couple of months ago, at which “English politician and freedom fighter Paul Weston” is an advertised speaker. According to the BF report: “This will be a high-profile visit with excellent opportunities to publicise British Freedom internationally.”

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